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Did Anyone Realise Harry and Cedric Were No Longer In The Maze?

Who, if anyone, realised Harry and Cedric had left the maze?

This question occurred to me when I was re-reading Chapter Thirteen of OOTP, when Hermione says 'Look, you don't understand what it was like after it happened, you arrived back in the middle of the lawn clutching Cedric's dead body ... none of us saw what happened in the maze ...we just had Dumbledore's word for it that You-Know-Who had come back and killed Cedric and fought you.'

Personally, it seems somewhat implausible that no-one noticed they were no longer in the maze, particularly when Harry and Cedric must have been in the graveyard in Little Hangleton for a considerable amount of time (an hour at the minimum, by my logic). Yet there seems to be little evidence to support anyone having noticed they'd gone.

It's also plausible that it was assumed they were simply taking their time getting through the maze, and no-one was worried by this. Also, with Moody/Barty Crouch Jr patrolling he could have simply lied and said to anyone concerned that he could see them with his magical eye, so there was nothing to worry about.

Would Dumbledore have realised something was amiss? Would anyone?

Particularly, if the teachers had realised something had gone wrong, would the students watching have been informed? Personally I highly doubt they would have been, for fear of panic, but I think they might have noticed perhaps a dark atmosphere.

Hmm. I definitely don't think the students would have been told anything, even if professors did have some way of knowing. I guess it doesn't bother me because the maze is a separate place, and bizarre things are known to happen in it. I can't imagine it was incredibly unusual for some to be taking a while getting through it... Dumbledore would probably just have assumed they were still fighting off creatures and dealing with the obstacles. Also, I would have to reread to know for sure, but I've never imagined that they were gone for an hour. To me, it was more like 20 minutes or half an hour. Also, your point about Moody is an important one. Up to this point, Dumbledore has no reason to suspect a thing, as he didn't have a clue who he really was until he disobeyed Dumbledore's direct order about not taking Harry away.

As far as feeling a "darkness," I don't really think so. The portkey took them to an entirely different place, so there would have been nothing changing around those waiting for the task to end, if that makes sense.

Not sure if this helps... you're making me want to reread that bit. Hopefully someone else knows more.

My first thought when considering this was about how much the audience would be able to see from their seats around the maze. The maze was built on the Quidditch pitch, and apparently had hedges 20 feet tall. How much the audience could see would depend on how high up they were sitting. I canít find any concrete reference to how high the seats around the Quidditch pitch are, but itís a fact that the goal hoops are fifty feet tall. This makes me think that even the lowest seats would have easily been more than twenty feet high.

I think it is safe to assume that the spectators would have had a reasonable view of the task. Otherwise, there would have been little point in having spectators at all. Therefore I would have expected them to be following the competitorís progress pretty closely and to have noticed when Harry and Cedric reached the cup. However, the parts of the maze visible to you would depend on where you were sitting. I am horribly bad at visualising things like this, with all of the different angles and lines of sight involved, but I imagine that different people would have been able to see different parts of the maze.

Maybe itís just that from where Hermione was sitting, the centre of the maze wasnít visible and so she didnít know what was going on. However, I would have expected anyone who did see Harry and Cedric to have started talking about it. News of an event as dramatic as that would have spread around the stands pretty quickly. I guess that Hermione would have heard a possibly distorted version of what happened without having seen it firsthand. Iím sure that the staff would have tried to keep everyone calm, but they wouldnít have been able to keep it completely under wraps.

Actually, the teachers patrolling outside the maze might have known even less than the students. I don't think that any except Barty Crouch Jnr would have been able to see into the maze, so they would have most likely been clueless. I suppose that Dumbledore would tell them, but I don't think that they could have seen what happened.

Then of course, you have to remember that even if people had seen Harry and Cedric vanish, they would have had no idea where they went. Even Dumbledore wouldnít have had a clue what was going on until Harryís return. I canít imagine that he was oblivious to the fact that Harry and Cedric vanished, but maybe, like you suggested, Barty Crouch Jnr influenced his judgement. As no-one but Crouch could have known what was going on, speculation must have been rife.

This has turned into a small essayís worth of speculation, and some of it may be complete and utter nonsense, but once Iíve started thinking about something I sometimes struggle to stop. I hope it helps a little.

WeasleyMom:Personally I judged the graveyard scene to have taken about an hour as in that time Cedric died, Harry was tied to Tom Riddle Sr's gravestone, Wormtail completed the various tasks required to resurrect Voldemort, Voldemort regained a body, he then had a long discussion with Harry in which he discovered he could now touch him, before summoning the Death Eaters. The Death Eaters did not arrive immediately, it took about five minutes for them all to arrive from what I can tell, then Voldemort addressed them individually, before showing them that he had succeeded in luring Harry away from Dumbledore.

After this Harry and Voldemort began their initial duel (about five/ten minutes), until their cores connected and lifted them into the air, and the spirits of Voldemort's victims began to converse with Harry, eventually allowing him to escape.

Personally I feel that all of this must have taken not much less than an hour, particularly the events before the Death Eaters arrived

In terms of the 'darkness', I simply meant that if the teachers were worried, the crowds might have subconsciously picked up on the tension, which added to their own anxieties (Mrs Weasley, for example, was most likely terrified of anything happening to Harry), could have made for a 'dark' atmosphere, for surely they would have been simply sat there waiting for the task to end.

Sophie: The view from the Quidditch stands hadn't occurred to me at all, and it solves the question I've always had as to why they bothered having an audience, as I hadn't linked the height of the stands with the height of the maze.

I agree with you that by this logic a considerable proportion of the crowds could have witnessed Harry and Cedric leaving the maze, and of course this would have led to wild speculation amongst the crowds.

Personally I find it incomprehensible that Dumbledore could have been oblivious to Harry and Cedric leaving the maze, and your point gives some evidence to this.

Whilst Dumbledore wouldn't have known how/why they were taken, I've no doubt he deduced the link to Voldemort, as like Sirius said earlier in the book the signs were all there, and he would no doubt have been concerned as to who/why Harry was entered into the tournament in the first place, though of course like you said none of this was corroborated until Crouch Jr made the mistake of taking Harry back into the castle.

The view from the Quidditch stands hadn't occurred to me at all, and it solves the question I've always had as to why they bothered having an audience, as I hadn't linked the height of the stands with the height of the maze.

The entirety of the second task occurred under water, but there was still an audience. I think much of the audience was there to find out the result, even if they couldn't see all the details. If the events in the maze had been visible, wouldn't someone have interfered as soon as Krum was seen attacking Fleur?

The only possible explanation for that would be that perhaps from the distance the audience were at, and the height of the hedges, it might have been difficult to realise that he was actually attacking her?

If the events in the maze had been visible, wouldn't someone have interfered as soon as Krum was seen attacking Fleur?

Good point Lori. Could it be that the audience saw Krum attack Fleur but that the teachers didn't, hence the lack of intervention? If we assume that some of the audience saw Harry and Cedric vanish, then some of them must have seen Krum attack Fleur. That still doesn't make sense of why no-one intervened though, because surely someone would have told the teachers. Could there have been rules aginst intervention, unless a competitor sent up sparks?

I'm pretty confused too! I can't make head or tail of this. If Lori is right and the audience coulnd't see into the maze, then why would people have bothered hanging around for the whole task if they weren't going to be able to see anything? It doesn't sound hugely entertaining. The task went on from dusk until well after nightfall - it seems a long time to wait around in the stands doing nothing. I'm feel like they would have been able to see something from the stands. So why did no-one intervene? Either JKR didn't think this through very well, and I would hate to assume that, or I'm missing something. A proper reread is definitely in order.

I agree with you that by this logic a considerable proportion of the crowds could have witnessed Harry and Cedric leaving the maze, and of course this would have led to wild speculation amongst the crowds.

It was a Portkey. It's highly likely you don't see them whooshing off anywhere. I think it's more like Apparition.

Fleur was finished off reasonably quickly, and then Krum. We see all this through Harry's eyes and he got through that first part very quickly because Fake!Moody removed the obstacles.

So, half an hour, then to Little Hangleton.

Cedric killed
Pettigrew has prepared most of the Potion and adds some Harry blood (5 mins)
Voldy rises (almost immediately)
Summons DE's and while waiting, has convo with Harry. (5/10 mins)
Convo with grovelling DE's and pick on Harry (10/15 mins)
Duel - first part is very short -
Priori Incantatum happens (5 mins) - then, 5-10 mins of intense conncentration.
Ghosts appear
They give him a few seconds to get back

I think it is safe to assume that the spectators would have had a reasonable view of the task. Otherwise, there would have been little point in having spectators at all.

Therefore I would have expected them to be following the competitorís progress pretty closely and to have noticed when Harry and Cedric reached the cup

No, they couldn't see anything because then they'd have seen Fleur attacked and Krum attacking Cedric. The hedges were high, but I imagine there could have been an Charm to stop them seeing what was going on. And this is at night. There are only stars to see by. As for why there were spectators. Who would want to stay away? They couldn't see under the lake either, and that took an hour.

So, basically, if you factor in that Harry didn't take long to reach the center of the maze and the Voldemort scene was around 45 minutes, from when they entered the maze would have been around 1 hour and fifteen minutes. Not that long to wait.

Whilst Dumbledore wouldn't have known how/why they were taken, I've no doubt he deduced the link to Voldemort, as like Sirius said earlier in the book the signs were all there, and he would no doubt have been concerned as to who/why Harry was entered into the tournament in the first place, though of course like you said none of this was corroborated until Crouch Jr made the mistake of taking Harry back into the castle.

Dumbledore of course, trusted Fake!Moody and had no idea at all that it was Barty Crouch Jnr, so if Crouch is telling him everything's okay, and it was Crouch who took the Cup to the centre, so Dumbledore wouldn't have had an inkling that things were wrong at all.

No, they couldn't see anything because then they'd have seen Fleur attacked and Krum attacking Cedric. The hedges were high, but I imagine there could have been an Charm to stop them seeing what was going on. And this is at night. There are only stars to see by. As for why there were spectators. Who would want to stay away? They couldn't see under the lake either, and that took an hour.

I would imagine that they could see some things because they were quite high up in the stands. If they didn’t want anyone to see what was happening, why have it on the Quidditch Pitch? I’m sure there’s plenty of space around the castle to build a maze where people could just stand around and wait – but they didn’t do that, which makes me believe the schools wanted their students to watch the final stage.
Now just because the students would be able to see down into the maze, doesn’t mean they could actually track what was happening. How would you be able to see harry turn upside? You wouldn’t… that was an illusion, so either the students would just see him standing there, or possibly he would seem to disappear to them. So what other illusions could have been made?

I think Crouch Jr could have set a protective charm around the Cup, much like the one Hermione set around their camps in DH, to make it look like they weren’t there. In the dark, it probably wasn’t that easy to track the students below, so maybe everyone thought they just lost sight of Harry and Cedric. There could have also been charms to make it look to the audience like there was an obstacle with fog or blackouts.

I honestly just always assumed people wouldn’t care much because, well, it’s the maze. Anything can happen in it, there could be any kind of creature in it, and the students probably didn’t see everything happening in it. If they did see someone disappear, they probably would have just thought it was some trick of the maze that they had to figure out. I know that’s what I would have thought… but I’m not a very attentive person either…

I can imagine the students getting restless and murmirs going through the crowd... You're probably right about Moody/Crouch lying about seeing them, I never thought of that! Dumbledore may have wanted to go and look around, too...